The US launched the first drone strike in Pakistan this year in an attack targeting fighters loyal to a Taliban commander who is favored by Pakistan’s government as well as its military and intelligence establishment.

The CIA-operated, remotely piloted Predators or Reapers launched an airstrike on a compound in the village of Wacha Basti in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan earlier today, Dawn reported. Eight people, including an unidentified “high-value target,” are reported to have been killed in the strike.

The compound that was hit belongs “to an Uzbek commander of the Taliban’s Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group,” Dawn noted. Hafiz Gul Bahadar is the top Taliban commander for North Waziristan, and administers the jihadist haven of Datta Khel.

The Pakistani military claimed in early September 2014 that it has “cleared” Datta Khel of jihadist groups during Operation Zarb-e-Azb, which began on June 15, 2014. But the operation targeted only the so-called “bad” Taliban, such as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Haqqani Network and the Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group were not targeted in the operation, despite Pakistani military claims to the contrary.

Today’s covert operation in Datta Khel is the first strike reported in Pakistan this year. Last year the US launched 24 airstrikes inside Pakistan; 11 of those strikes took place in Datta Khel, and six more occurred in the Shawal Valley of North Waziristan, which is also an al Qaeda and jihadist hub in the tribal agency. The number of strikes has decreased since the program’s peak in 2010, when 117 attacks were recorded by The Long War Journal. [See LWJ report, Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2015.]

The US continues to target and kill al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan’s tribal areas despite previous claims by Obama administration officials that al Qaeda has been decimated and only two “core” al Qaeda leaders remain active. And al Qaeda remains active outside of Pakistan’s tribal areas in the provinces of Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh, where the US drones do not operate.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

6 Comments

It will be interesting to hear the Pakistani response to this strike. Following the attack on the Military School, and the Pakistani impression that there are no more such things as “good” or “bad” Taliban, I would expect there to be no comment whatsoever.
Am I day-dreaming?… I guess we will soon see.

I expect that it would be impossible for the US to strike at Bahadar directly without Pakistani government approval and Pak ISI coopertion. It would be the end of US-Pak relations for more than a year if we did this unilaterally, I think. The Pak news releases seem to support that notion, too, because they are villainizing Bahadar out of proportion to the facts, and there are no howls of protest from the Army.
I did not expect this. It makes me wonder what else we can anticipate changes with.
Is the Haqqani network also coming up fair game in the near future? Is this quid-pro-quo for actions against TTP in Nuristan, Kunar, Jalalabad?
Nice surprise. I’m full of questions.

“Good” Taliban? How is it that these words are used together? What imbecile termed this abomination of words? Why do Pakistani people give credence to this, thus making it a de-facto idea,?…?…?do they not all kill unrelentingly, and unrelentingly kill all..? George Bush who was free of ideological arguments, a gift given by nietivity, could see past all these “shady ideas” and not have a problem killing any of them.THIS is how wars are…… Well ….you know…